The School of Public Health is one of 17 schools at the University of Pittsburgh. The school, founded in 1948, was first led by Thomas Parran, surgeon general of the U.S. Public Health Service. It is ranked as the 13th best public health school in the United States by U.S. News & World Report. In addition, it is ranked third among public health schools for funding received from the National Institutes of Health. It was the first of only two fully accredited schools of public health in Pennsylvania. The school offers a Bachelor's of Science in Public Health (BSPH), Masters of Public Health (MPH), Master of Science (MS), Master of Health Administration, and doctoral degrees in areas such as behavioral and community health sciences, biostatistics, environmental and occupational health, epidemiology, health policy and management, human genetics, and infectious disease and microbiology.

Thomas Parran was an American physician and Public Health Service officer. He was appointed the sixth Surgeon General of the United States from 1936 to 1948, and oversaw the notorious Tuskegee syphilis experiment and Guatemala syphilis experiment.